unloading SSP machine, Small Bus Edition or XP Pro, Windev

Hi Folks,

Greetings.

Excellent forum.
Three questions for now.

#1) We recently went to a OS/400 -- from running SSP on the Advanced/36, the 400
model. What do we do with that old machine that does not have OS/400 activated ?
Recycle ? Trade it to China for some toys ? Is there any real usage these days ?

#2) Our 15 PC's (Client Access mainly plus various PC programs) have been running on Windows NT Server 4.0 on an older PC as the "server". The reason we can do this is that we do very little "serving" and even the little that is done is sometimes hosted on one of the user PC's (e.g. Filemaker .. we also have a couple of folks sharing MYOB AP (Mind Your Own Business). However it is time to do some upgrading.

My PC-network guy surprisingly suggested simply getting Windows XP Professional as the base PC ... not Small Business Edition 2003 which would be the expected. (Ok, Linux might be best, but only if we really knew it was doable). This might make the cost more like $1000-1500 instead of $2200 or so for the expected Dell machine .. however it would make the PC network peer-to-peer instead of real client-server. Assuming we were not expanding the PC area significantly in ways that require real file serving, is this a sensible idea ? I will acknowledge that I find it a bit strange but I do not want to fully reject without a solid reason and understanding.

#3) Has anyone worked with or used WinDev -- a program from France that seeks to work on your OS/400 files directly from a Windows development 5GL'ish environment, without the superstructure of the main alternative I know of .. Magic. How is it working ? Are there other players of significance that you know of .. outside of the IBM - Java type of development or a Delphi-type attempt.

ie. a full-blown Window's side environment. The idea --- replacing dual data on Filemaker and enhancing Windows ease-of-use with the OS/400 backend, while maintaining full OS/400 programs and data.

Thanks for your help on any of these somewhat disparate questions :-).

Feel free to call me and chat about any of these, as well as the regular email response.

Shalom,
Steven Spencer
Programmer
Queens, NY
stevenavery@xxxxxxxxxx
347 218-3306